The Washington Capitals beat the Tampa Bay Lightning 2-1 in Tampa Saturday night.
Once again, the Lightning found themselves with too few goals – this time, in spite of firing off 36 shots – to win, and once again, injuries took another bite out of the lineup.
“For whatever reason, the puck is just not going in the net consistently for us. I don’t think we could have worked any harder than we did tonight. We executed a majority of the game plan and got some quality looks. It’s just the way it has gone. I told the guys if we play like this, we’re going to start winning a lot more down the stretch.” – Steven Stamkos
“Any time you see one of your teammates go down… you don’t want to see that, but it takes the rest of the guys to rally around them and play our best game.” – J.T. Brown
Tyler Johnson was scratched before the game started. Jonathan Drouin was injured during pre-game warm-ups and Ondrj Palat was hurt in the first period and unable to return.
Just 2:09 into the first, Jay Beagle put Washington on the board, getting an assist from Stanislav Galiev.
They scored what would turn out to be the game winner at 11:16 of the second, with Evgeny Kuznetsov scoring with help from John Carlson.
Tampa Bay managed to halve the lead at 8:05 of the third when Nikita Kucherov scored on the power play, with assistance from Anton Stralman and Stamkos, but that’s as close as they would get.
The Lightning will be in action again on Monday when they travel to Columbus to take on the Blue Jackets.
Game notes:
- The Lightning have now lost four in a row to Washington, including twice this season.
- Ben Bishop has given up two or fewer goals 17 times this season, but has only a 10-7 record to show for it.
- Holtby is now 10-0-1 in his last 11 decisions.
- Brian Boyle played in the 500th game of his NHL career.
- Nine of Kucherov’s 18 points this season have come on the power play.
- Stamkos has five assists in his last six games.
- The Lightning honored Dr. Geetha Kamath as the 14th Lightning Community Hero of the 2015-16 season during the first period of tonight’s game. Dr. Kamath, who received a $50,000 donation from the Lightning Foundation and the Lightning Community Heroes program, will donate the money to St. Petersburg Free Clinic. Dr. Kamath has devoted 35 years of service to the Tampa Bay community by providing medical assistance to an estimated 500,000 individuals. Her first camp began in 2004 at the Salvation Army and now performs camps at St. Petersburg Free Clinic which provides primary health care services for low-income adults aged 18-64 without private insurance, V.A. benefits, Medicare or Medicaid and who do not qualify for county-subsidized health care. At the clinic, she provided dental care in addition to medical care to 6,000 low-income and homeless individuals at no cost. Dr. Kamath also provided disaster relief in Haiti after the earthquake struck the nation in 2010. Dr. Kamath has had numerous life experiences which have made her commitment to making a difference deeper and has inspired others. Her heartfelt compassion and respect for each patient permeates her medical skill and service as she seeks to provide the utmost care. Her legacy is to bring the Tampa Bay community to a greater state of health through volunteer efforts.
Dr. Kamath becomes the 193rd Lightning Community Hero since Jeff and Penny Vinik introduced the program in 2011-12 with a $10 million, five-season commitment to the Tampa Bay community. Through this evening’s game, in total, the Lightning Foundation has granted $9.8 million to more than 300 different non-profits in the Greater Tampa Bay area.
